| what |
[02 Oct 2009|05:14am] |
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mood |
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 jubilant |
] |
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music |
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a fan |
] |
I enjoy coming back here to re-read posts I made like, over half a year ago, and thinking about how relevant they may or may not be anymore. It is quite amusing!
I have always wanted to keep a more "public" journal but I simply don't have the time (or memory capacity) to update it on a regular basis.
Speaking of, back to studying!
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| awesome |
[27 Mar 2009|11:27pm] |
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mood |
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 aggravated |
] |
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music |
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whirrrrrr |
] |
My credit card is missing! I am not taking any chances and called them to cancel it and they're sending me a new one. I won't be needing it for a while (hopefully), but it's still a pain. A lot of things I have auto-renew and now I have to change all of this information.. :(
It was surprisingly easy, I guess. Told them it was missing, they asked what my last purchase was, I told them, it was mine, so at least it hasn't been stolen (or used yet, anyway).
I don't know how this could have happened. It's always in my wallet/pocket. Oh well. Karma. It will now turn up somewhere.
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| updates again |
[20 Mar 2009|09:09am] |
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mood |
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 accomplished |
] |
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music |
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Hit the Floor - Bullet For My Valentine |
] |
Well, I have been pretty busy with midterms lately. Today is my last one, but it's computer science, so pretty easy. Unfortunately, because of studying for it, I will not be able to do my math assignment. FORTUNATELY, that is like 0.6% off my final grade, so I will be ok.
Speaking of school: I did my "formal systems and logic in computing" midterm the other day (this is basically logic, set theory, and induction), and it seems I got 80% (exactly), which puts me in the highest percentile (is that the word I am looking for?) for this class. The majority of people damn near failed that exam. It was pretty difficult, but.. not that difficult. Good for me! Bad for everyone else, I guess. Hopefully the same can happen on today's midterm, but this professor is pretty harsh when it comes to midterms. He pulls theory out of his ass.
Guitar: got my new pickups today! Installing them was surprisingly a breeze, but my soldering iron was being kind of a bitch. Also, the bridge pickup sounds different depending on how it is oriented, so uhh, I spent a good 45 minutes deciding how I wanted that done. All in all it took about an hour, which wasn't too bad. Room mate told me I should get a tech to do it. Ha, says I! I saved 60 bucks, and got to tweak not only the various little details (and also adjust intonation, which I was meaning to do anyway), I also got to configure my switch how I wanted! They probably would have had like 2 options: bridge, neck. Or something half-assed.
Anyway, point is, that made all the difference in the world. This guitar sounds amazing now. I can do pinch harmonics on the god damn low B string! (which sounds fucking awesome, for the record, it's like bwaaaa SQUEAL) The tone is less muddy, and a little brighter, but yeah, harmonics stand out a fuck of a lot better, and distortion no longer sounds like ass. I still have some minor tweaking to do to the guitar before I am happy but overall I am pleased. Next job is my POD XT, I need to make it my bitch, but that could take quite some time before I find a tone I am truly happy with. Oh well.
Not much playing done because of midterms. :( Mostly just working on pinch harmonics and scales. I am fond of E-flat minor, it sounds really cool. Also I discovered that I already roll my fingers, so learning to sweep shouldn't actually be as hard for me as it is for most people, which is cool.
I should take pictures of my baby. It also needs a name (what? people name cars too!), but I have no idea how to name an inanimate object beyond "this is already called latias, so I will call it that."
Oh god midterm.
Also I am obsessed with Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine. But holy fuck, they have some sweet ass gallopy rhythms, so whatever. Awesome stuff.
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| oogh |
[16 Mar 2009|07:46am] |
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mood |
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 tired |
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music |
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Blackened - Between the Buried and Me |
] |
What did you have for breakfast? A piece of toast? Cereal? I scoff at you. I just had 2 breakfast sandwiches (loaded with egg and bacon (3 eggs)) and then proceeded to eat the entire package of bacon. Also 2 glasses of juice. I AM READY FOR TODAY
Or am I? Fortunately, no exams today. Just some review for 2 of my classes, and potentially getting my marks back. That is, assuming I can make it through the day. Pulled an all-nighter last night. Really tired. But couldn't sleep, so whatever.
Fuck. This song is awesome. Love their tone. Anyway. Didn't do any guitaring today (yesterday?), so no real progress. But I did buy new pickups due to getting my income tax return! DiMarzio D Sonic DP706 for bridge and Air Norton 7 for neck. Funnily enough, these are apparently the pickups John Petrucci uses (he uses a custom Air Norton, but he DOES use the same D Sonic, since apparently he designed it). I didn't even do this on purpose. How awesome is that? I have done some reading and some listening, and I will hopefully be really happy with the tone. Maybe I will finally have my dream guitar in my hands? Here's to hoping.
Problem is the Air Norton is Black AND Cream. :( My guitar is going to look pretty fugly, but as long as it sounds awesome I will be ok.
Should probably get to class ugh.
Oh! I have never changed pickups before, but apparently it's just some soldering. My only real concern, though, is everyone going "don't remove all your strings," but I see this as a problem; how the hell am I supposed to do this without removing the strings? Would it be bad to leave the low B and high E on there to kind of maintain tension? Seems easier to just take them all off, do the swap quick, and then put new ones on, but I don't know. Leaving a string on there actually let's me try the tone before I put all the strings on, too. Oh well, I will do more research.
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| more guitaran |
[15 Mar 2009|05:18am] |
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music |
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tick tock tock tock |
] |
Well, I finally got it: I think I found my final bad habit in my strumming hand, and have completely figured out what muscles to use when alt-strumming fast. I have no idea how fast I can go now; I have not yet reached that speed with metronome training but I know it's at least 110bpm with 16th notes. A few more days of grinding this and I will have it made.
I think my goal for my first riff is the main riff to Painkiller: decently fast (100bpm w/ 16th notes), but relatively easy on my fretting hand. Also it sounds totally killer.
I guess after this I really need to work on my fretting hand. I see so much wrong, it's not even funny. But for now, I am focusing on one thing at a time, and it's working really well. I can play Panic Attack (not up to speed mind you) main riff, but it still doesn't sound quite right. And the chords in Panic Attack don't sound right at all. Probably again due to speed. I will just need to practice it, I guess.
For fretting hand, I haven't decided what to work on first; I think I will invent some finger stretching exercises across the fretboard and go from there.
This is going extremely quickly, compared to how fast I was thinking it would go. I don't know about anyone else, so I guess I will see what Justin says compared to his brother.
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| oh yes |
[14 Mar 2009|02:10pm] |
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mood |
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excited |
] |
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music |
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Acid Rain - Liquid Tension Experiment |
] |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Clouds_%26_Silver_Linings
Oh yes, baby: 6 tracks. *6 tracks*. The last time that happened one of them was 42 minutes long. How could I not be pumped? Also, there are "6 cover songs" to be featured that will be released "by digital means" during the 6 weeks leading up to the album. Rock Band, anyone?
Anyway, the real relevance of this is thus: I had better get really good at guitar, really fast. My goal for the summer? Learn at least one song from this new album. I just hope their tour date for my city doesn't coincide with when I was planning on traveling. I guess we'll see. I absolutely have to see them live.
Spent another hour doing the super entertaining awesome fun METRONOME TRAINING, got to 160bpm with 8th notes. This guitar is a beast. Muting sounds awesome, harmonics are clean (except on low B string..), it's light, and overall just extremely comfortable. I couldn't be happier. I would say when I get to 130bpm with 16th notes, I need to focus on seeing what my right hand is probably doing wrong, too. Fix all my bad habits before they start acting up again.
Also conned myself out of work tonight (but into work on Wednesday) because of midterms. Oh boy!
To sleep I goeth.
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| updates |
[12 Mar 2009|11:00am] |
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mood |
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accomplished |
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music |
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The Mirror - Dream Theater |
] |
Hum. I haven't posted to this since November, but I finally figured out a use for it! I am going to use it to keep track of my progress on things, mostly for my own use (and by things I mostly mean guitar progress).
First: guitar. Got my new one today, but I noticed a major problem: I seemed to be forgetting the 7th string existed at all. Seems to defeat the purpose of, you know, buying a 7 string. And I am so out of shape (guitar-wise). I decided that I just.. have to start from scratch again. So I am.
I never really learned to alt-strum properly, so I guess I am starting with working on various right hand techniques. It really doesn't take that long at all. Finally I am doing it right as far as technique goes, so I am getting ok fast, pretty quickly. I decided to stop at 8th notes at 120bpm today; I could have got further, but I was trying all kinds of string skipping (because that's important too!), trying 4/4, 3/4 (eventually 6/8 when I was up to speed), and I was mixing it up by also forcing myself to learn to gallop. Within a few days I will hopefully be at at least 80bpm with 16th notes! Panic Attack main riff is 126bpm with 16th notes (fortunately 4/4 so I don't have to wrap my head around anything complicated).
Also, pinch harmonics: fuck you. Fuck you in the asshole. At least with this guitar, I can hear them. Though, the pickups aren't the best and I will replace them when I have money (you can't really hear them on the low B string; it sounds kind of muddy, so anything but the 1st harmonic is kind of bleh). Tapped harmonics are easy, though, and finally I can hear various natural harmonics.
Still know really nothing about distortion. :( Everything I do sounds gross but I am thinking that might be because of my pickups. Guess I'll see.
School: oh god I have my calculus II midterm tomorrow and then my french midterm. Oh boy. French midterm won't be so bad, but my calculus one might be pretty brutal. Guess I won't be sleeping tonight.
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| wow! |
[12 Jan 2008|01:45pm] |
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mood |
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content |
] |
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music |
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Vee going "aaaaaaaaa" |
] |
Well, today is Vee's birthday! Hooray. We will probably all celebrate with ice cream cake and Rock Band. And I will probably be all flirty and silly at some point! Because I love birthdays and they make me feel like that for some reason. And he will probably hate me for it, but that is OK!
Anyway. Not really much else to say. Nothing horrible has happened yet still! This is amazing. I was expecting my passport to like, start on fire or something. Or my laptop to explode. I dunno. It's a holiday, something always goes wrong.
I need to convince someone to take me out to get Vee a cake. Aaaaaaaaa.
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| fffffff |
[11 Jan 2008|10:52am] |
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mood |
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ecstatic |
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music |
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A State of Trance 334 |
] |
Hooooly fuck I never update this stupid journal. No one reads it so I only really seem to use it to document certain events in my life.
And there is currently an event happening, and I saw Vee browsing his friends page on LJ and decided to document my adventures again!
I have somehow managed to find myself back at Seattle, at Vee's house. This is either going to be the greatest week I have had in a really long time, because I am not feeling like shit, have come to terms with various things, and also they didn't lose all of my bags. Or it's going to be the most awkward week ever. So far so good! But time will tell.
Anyway, I finally had the first delay I have ever had in a flight: for a whopping 30 minutes! Holy crap. So whatever, I was still 2 hours earlier than I thought I would be. But SOMEONE told me the wrong address and then CONFIRMED the wrong address so I was a block away from their apartment complex. Which was fine, because after some yelling at eachother on the phone, I managed to notice Vee standing at the other end of the block. Which was good. So I managed to arrive just fine.
Of course, I had to work the night before, which means I felt like crap when I got here. Ugh. Woke up at 10PM that night, went straight to work, immediately after work, got on the taxi and went to the airport. I was up for 24 hours, on 3 hours of sleep. Not very pleasant. Also haven't eaten anything since 7AM yesterday really. Starved and still a little tired. But that's fine because it's TIME OFF FROM WORK WOO. Still managed to play Rock Band with them, but I was awful because I could barely see what was going on without getting totally dizzy.
I am now on my second day here and nothing terrible has happened yet! This is seriously amazing. My laptop will probably explode, though.
Aaaaaaaaa. I am in a pretty crazy and excited mood at the moment, but Vee is sitting right accross from me so I am holding it in because I don't want to make an ass of myself.
Also I am wearing my blazer for no particular reason. Because I think suits are sexy? Who knows.
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| oh jesus |
[27 Aug 2007|10:16pm] |
Hooooooly fuck. I leave for Pittsburgh in 12 hours. I am shaking right now, I am so nervous. I really hope I get this job, I am kind of banking on getting it. Worst case scenario, I get a different job, no big deal, but I would really like this one because then Alex is around for me to get help from without feeling like a total ass. I have never done this before. Hell, I've never really had a "full time" job before, so I am a little nervous. But at the same time, I am extremely excited. Whether or not I screw up, I will learn something. I learned how to tie a tie today. Got it on my first try, hooray. It doesn't look too ridiculous, I hope. I guess they will probably point it out of it does.
HELP ME GOD && JESUS && VISHNU
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| oh jesus god |
[23 Aug 2007|02:35am] |
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mood |
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 nervous |
] |
Oh holy fuck. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I return the call of the lady from the company I applied to work at. I passed their test, and they obviously liked me in the phone interview (I made the interviewer laugh twice, on my count! and the guy who interviewed me seemed pretty important and high up so making him laugh is pretty cool i guess), so now I have to call them and arrange when I can fly into their main office for an on-site interview. Which is located in Pittsburgh. That's right. Pittsburgh, in the US. Not the shitty Canadian rip-off Pittsburgh that's on the street of Edmonton, the real one. I am.. so incredibly nervous. But at the same time, I'm not nervous at all. I can't be nervous. If I'm nervous, it shows weakness, and I am desperately trying to impress these people, but more importantly I am trying to impress Alex (er, sorry, Eevee (don't kill me for saying your name :( )). Some day, you will be proud of me because I will be awesome! But for now, I am just aspiring. :(
However, this puts me in a shit nest of crap.. ass. I am currently moving to Edmonton. Like, I am at Scott's house, right now, spending the night because early in the morning, we're moving all of our beds to the new house. Should be all settled in (sorta) by Saturday. And herein lies the problem. They want me in Pittsburgh either Monday or Tuesday. I can do Tuesday, but Monday is a definite no. Get settled in Saturday, fly out on Sunday? I don't think so. I will fly out Monday (probably) and do the interview Tuesday, and then.. I have no idea what happens after that. Stay in Pittsburgh for a bit? Get the job? I am definitely very confident. Which is odd for me. I have been told that the interview is basically just getting to know me, to see if I'll fit in the environment, moreso than asking me about specific puzzles. But I am still going to hella major code all weekend, to make myself seem even more awesome.
Jesus. Everything is changing in my life so rapidly. It's amazing, really. In the matter of about two weeks, my life has completely turned itself inside out. Really, it's way too much for me to handle, and I just want to cry about it. But I am being STRONG. I actually asked Scott about that, because he's in the same situation as me (going to school, moving to an unfamiliar place, only he's going to be jobless as well), and he said that he almost has too. This is two guys, always more sensitive than the rest of 'em but still not exactly emotional - and we're both discussing whether or not we've cried about everything, and the general conclusion is "almost". But we always go man on shit and instead of crying, we punched things instead. But almost!
Expect a super long epic post about everything (and I mean EVERYTHING), just because I want to document all of the stuff that has happened before I force myself to forget the stress.
Jesus. I'm going to the US. For a job. In less than a week. Not only because I need a job for the city I am moving to (that I am terrified of), but because I am desperately seeking the approval of one person. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I care? WHAT AM I DOING? @_@
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| life is good! |
[21 Jul 2007|12:26am] |
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mood |
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cheerful |
] |
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music |
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Armin Van Buuren - A State of Trance 309 |
] |
Wow. Holy crap. For one, drivel is pretty awesome. Had a struggle trying to remember my LJ password but whatever! Anyway, the only way I can sum up this week, is: awesome. Holy shit. I feel absolutely amazing, for so many reasons. Seriously, for the first time in months I feel GOOD!
Summary version:
-something that has been bothering me for like 4 months I finally managed to get off my chest. That is the biggest one.
-totally applied for a new job
-had absolutely no problems getting my passport
-thought I was in trouble because I have a lot of school work to finish but turns out I got an extension
-my little sister got totally owned and I love it.
-because of all these I am once again highly sociable!
( not so summarized version )
Life is good. Don't you agree?
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[05 Jul 2007|12:38am] |
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mood |
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cheerful |
] |
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music |
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Vince Nysse & Nj Hinton - Silver Water (Darren Styles Remix) |
] |
I seem to have temporarily fixed the hackyness of post nuking. I still don't entirely care, because post nuking should never be used anyway. However, something that will be used pretty regularily, post deletion, is pretty much done, except for something I need to discuss with Eevee. Mainly, when flagging a post as deleted, should the post counts reflect this? Or should it just be flagged as deleted, and that's it? It looks extremely silly when the forum says it has one thread and 3 posts when none of them are visible. But then again, this looks equally as ridiculous to administrators who see that there are 0 threads and 0 posts, but in fact there is one thread and 3 posts. It is Eevee's call, either way is fine, both look silly in some respect, nothing I can do about it. The old method was just flagging the post as deleted and forgetting about it, so I might take that route.
Also, I added user-specific permissions, to coincide with the group permissions. User permissions always override group permissions, so if you want an entire group to be able to delete posts except one person, set a user permission; likewise, if an entire group can't delete, but you want one person to, set a user permission.
Anyway that is all. :B I have actually been making rather large progress on coding, and should be able to commit these silly changes in the next few days, assuming I don't massively screw up on editing. Also I need to show Eevee the source code first, so that if he wants anything changed, it can be done before I commit, thus reducing the number of commits.
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[25 Jun 2007|06:47am] |
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mood |
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nervous |
] |
Holy crap I can't sleep. Exam is in 2 hours. This cold is destroying me and I am fearing doing terrible on the exam. Oh god help me. :(
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| pokemon aaaaaaa |
[13 Jun 2007|04:29pm] |
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mood |
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horny |
] |
| [ |
music |
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the humm of computers |
] |
Aaaaaaaaaaaa Pokemon. I now have over 300 Pokemon in my 'dex and like 250 caught. This is taking far less time than I would have expected (120 hours so far), and I am quite enjoying it. The only ones I can't get are the three event-only ones, so if someone can do tradebacks with me, I would really appreciate it (I still have to get a ton of Pokemon that evolve while holding an item through trades; I would rather have those than the event Pokemon, so if someone were to tradeback with me, I would use Ryhdon w/ protector and such as a trade). But other than that, I have most of the new ones. Still missing Giratina, but that won't take much effort to go get.
Also I feel the sudden urge to pay an artist for some art. NEED MORE MONEY FOR PICTURES OF LATIASES.
I have over 1.5 million Pokedollars. I am rich in Pokemon.
I love summer.
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| pogeymans |
[22 May 2007|02:52pm] |
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mood |
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ow dentist |
] |
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music |
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Unknown Song - Rockman ZX Advent |
] |
FINALLY got my copy of Pearl! I was unsure of which version to get, and someone told me "pearl is kind of the same color as you i guess", so that's why I got it. Apparently, it is the lesser purchased of the two versions, so I feel special.
Pearl (US): 5197 9116 0049
If you really want to make my day, random owner of Diamond, you will trade me the Diamond exclusives for the Pearl exclusives. (not the legendaries, I need to find someone I trust to do that I guess)
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| pogeymans |
[15 May 2007|05:43pm] |
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mood |
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horny |
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aaaaaaa. I bought Leaf Green because I will be getting Diamond or Pearl soon and want to try to complete the Pokedex as much as possible. But holy shit. It is impossible to die in Leaf Green. I am trying to die ON PURPOSE, and I can't. The AI is terrible. Seriously. It just keeps randomly pulling moves out of it's ass. I can't wait for D/P to arrive so I can get in some battles that actually involve thinking. :(
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| bah |
[08 May 2007|09:47pm] |
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mood |
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silly |
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music |
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Ace Ventura - Pet Detective |
] |
I am feeling particularly silly at the moment. I went back home for supper with the family tonight, and it was quite enjoyable (steaks, mmm!). Of course, we're the most insane people on the face of the planet; belching, fart jokes, swear words, and overall bad manners is pretty much the norm at our table. But I guess that's why I keep going back. At least it's never dull.
This has been sitting open in firefox for like, 3 days. I just now noticed. I have 80 tabs open, so... That first part is old. New news!
Well, veekun has a memory leak (or I should say, had), and fortunately it wasn't my fault. However, my app had the same problem, so it was also my fault. Thankfully, Vee is awesome and managed to figure out the problem (I was just commenting stuff out (in comparison to the Catalyst tutorial app - which had no leaking issues)). I had commented out the lines that were causing problems (for a different reason other than the cause), and unfortunately it went right over my head. Durr. I am dumb. Oh well, it doesn't matter, it's fixed now! yay for eevee!
Hopefully the renovations are done soon.
Also Ace Ventura is a really funny movie. I totally forgot.
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| wtf |
[03 May 2007|01:32am] |
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mood |
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lonely |
] |
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music |
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REMASTERED TRACKS ROCKMAN ZERO Idea - Power Bom |
] |
Wow. I am amazed and awe struck by having such a large amount of desktop space (both physically and electronically; I got a new desk as well!). When I get a chance to show it to my friends, I will get off my high horse about it, but until then..!
On the note of "friends", if there's anyone in the Canada area I know, and they want to visit, feel free to drop me a line!
... :(? I didn't think so, but it's worth a shot. I really don't like living so far from everyone. Ohwell.
On that note, I discovered I desperately need someone to talk at about my various thingers. I feel very uncomfortable talking to the few people I can talk to about certain things, especially if it directly or indirectly involves them. It makes it very awkward to try and get help with something that they are a part of. So, I am going to see if there's any counselors in my area; that would probably help loads, because I could offload all my stress to someone who gets paid to care, and legally can't spread my top secret information! There's also always Charlene, but I don't know if she'd understand what I am trying to say, or even care, because I have left the impression that I am a sarcastic asshole (I have done that to a few people, and strongly regret it; ohwell).
That's actually it, really. '2 days left to activate windows', baaaah. I am too lazy to call Microsoft about it, so I will either reinstall or try Vista with my whacky monitor/video card setup, to see if it even works. Which entails a reinstall. Which means another hour or so without my PC. Sigh. I need to write an epic batch (or perl) script to do all my common reinstall tasks for me.
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| holy crap |
[01 May 2007|11:04pm] |
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mood |
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terrible |
] |
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music |
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ZX Tunes - Green Grass Gradation |
] |
This is just a quick post before I go to bed. I feel infinitely crappy at the moment (holy shit, ∞!), but I felt the need to make a quick post that no one will ever read.
For everything bad that happens in life, something good happens; and this "good happening" is a doozy, although extremely nerdy.
http://img489.imageshack.us/my.php?image=holydesktopne9.jpg
A JPG just doesn't do this justice, at all; however, I have no real reliable way to host it, so that's the best option. The fully compressed PNG is 2.8 megs, so...
Kind of a long story, but I'll shorten it because I need to sleep. I found a spare 7600GT kicking around, and I have a spare PCIe x16 slot! Go figure, they were meant for eachother! So, I put them together like some kind of mad crazy disgusting hillbilly love, and it worked.. sort of. See, with nVidia's *cough* "Unified Driver Architecture", the G80 (8800) drivers work only with GeForce 8 series cards. Period. So, with a little bit of nerd fudging, I hacked the drivers to force it to install a 7600GT. And it worked, somehow (hence the odd name for the second card). That is the result of it. 3 monitor fury; 4560x1050 of sheer awesome. It is kind of disorienting working with such a large resolution (and also 3 monitors), but holy crap can you accomplish things. It's amazing. I am considering paying for both of the monitors and the video card, because this is just.. wow. Words can't describe it, you have to see it yourself.
That is all. Now I have to go to sleep.
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latiass's journal